I still have a Pavlovian reaction to general knowledge tests. I get excited. This is because I think I'm good at them, because I was a know-it-all at school. Truth is, I DID know it all at school. I vividly remember, at the age of 5 years old, correcting my primary school teacher's spelling of Tyrannosaurus Rex. It only got worse from there on in. I was a horrible, precocious nightmare, and if you knew me as a child, I'm very sorry. I can only assure you that my brain has rotted since, and at the ripe old age of 31, my IQ is now comparable to a tin of mushy peas.
When it comes to the nitty gritty of a pub quiz, and the glittering prize of a £20 beer voucher (redeemable in the next 7 days only), I flounder in the face of trivia.
Albert Einstein: probably rubbish at pub quizzes too
I don't know what it is - I just don't seem to be able to retain useless information anymore. Maybe my mind is on higher things, maybe I'm stressed, maybe I don't care enough about sport or current affairs to be much use on the broad spectrum of topics that comprise most pub quizzes.
My only saving grace is the music round, which disappointingly is also the forte of pretty much everybody else I go to the pub with, so there's little glory to be had there. I was very pleased with my identification of Fleetwood Mac's Tusk from a verbal description of the album cover, but I know for a fact that I only got there first because Sam was in the loo. And I'm only ever really covering music from 1975-2012 (n.i Emma Bunton's cover of Sunshine On A Rainy Day, apparently. Did anyone else blink and miss that?).
The last few times I've been to the quiz at the West End, we have been whipped to within an inch of our lives - last night we only got just over half marks, and I think that's still an improvement on recent visits. There were long faces when the winners were announced, with their impossibly high scores.
But then - almost in slow motion - the quizmaster declared "The Brussel Sprouts" the winners of the guess-the-year tie-break and a £5 beer voucher (also redeemable within 7 days).
Now we can say we won the pub quiz, and it's only a little bit of a lie.
Do you like pub quizzes? Know of any in Leeds that are easier than this one?
In Australia every year in primary schools there's a competition called the MS Trivia challenge. Our team of 4, 2 boys and 2 girls, won our local round, our city round, and our state round. We got knocked out in the final heat on the question how high is a pool table, which was multiple choice. This was in 1996. I cried all the way home, and it was made worse by my Dad saying he didn't think it was an unreasonable question, he thought I could have worked it out if I knew how tall I was, by thinking about where a pool table would come up to on me if I stood next to it. The fact that one of the boys from the team and the other girl from the team both now live in London and I mention trivia challenge EVERY TIME we see them goes some way to showing how passionate I am about quizzes. I have friends who won't play trivial pursuit with me because I 'get scary'. I am jealous that you got to go to the pub with Bedders and Laura and Woody though! xx
ReplyDeleteOh yeah, and once when playing trivial pursuit with a friend's dad I would have won on the question 'who said 'we're bigger than God?' and I answered 'The Beatles' and on the card it said 'John Lennon.' This was around about 1998. Wow. Really selling myself, aren't I? xx
ReplyDeleteI'm useless at pub quizzes. People always assume I'll be brilliant at them because I have a really good degree. People have argued over getting me on their team because "Katie's really clever" ....more fool them, because unless the quiz has a biochemistry round, I am truly appalling.
ReplyDeleteThe only round I am ever ANY good at is literature, and even then it's hit and miss because I always forget the name of the book, or the name of the author. Im that really frustrating person who spends the whole night going "I know it, it's on the tip of my tongue"
K x
I'm still impressed at your instantaneous identification of Jesus and Mary Chain. Go Penny!
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